News outlets have to improve to survive, journalists say

Vinti Singh, STAFF WRITER

Published 10:55 pm, Friday, April 16, 2010

DANBURY -- The news industry faces challenges in generating revenues from emerging media platforms. But perhaps an even larger problem looking to the future of news is creating a product people find worth consuming, journalists said in a panel discussion at Western Connecticut State University.

The Thursday night panel discussion, titled "The Future of News," was part of the university's Spring Writing Festival.

Hearst Connecticut Media Group Interactive Executive Producer Keith Whamond, a panelist, said the disappearance of in-depth, investigative reporting in future news models was what he was most concerned about.

While the future of news continues to evolve, it doesn't mean the quality is still there, Jason Leopold, editor of the online news website The Public Record, said. Leopold joined the panel from California through Skype.

For example, he said, journalists ask if the U.S. is sending too many or too few troops to Afghanistan, instead of asking why the U.S. military is there in the first place.

People have moved away from mainstream media because of its failure to adequately cover the two wars that the United States is engaged in, Leopold said. He said the investigative pieces on the Huffington Post surpass those in the Washington Post.

Journalists increasingly rely on a transmission of accurate information from

public relations people, WestConn public relations director Paul Steinmetz, a panelist, said. He pointed out how, in a recent article, New York Times reporters got all their information about the brakes on the Toyota Prius from Toyota spokespeople.

"Even in independent outfits, everyone seems to be competing for Web traffic," Leopold said. "What happens is quality suffers as a result."

As newspapers shrink staffs, they have had to reduce the number of events they can cover, said News-Times Editor Art Cummings, another panelist. Instead of trying to cover everything, The News-Times has decided to focus on the major issues in the community and look at them in depth, he said.

Baker said he believes "journalism is in a state of total collapse" and "there will be no journalism as we know it in a few short years."

He attributed the problem to the for-profit model of the business, and said democracy is too important to leave it up to advertisers to fund.

Who What Why/The Real News Project is a nonprofit news website, and Russ said he is looking for "rich people who want to do the right thing" to fund the site. He said he hoped one day average citizens would find his publication worthy of $20 or more out of their pockets every month.

Leopold said one idea being floated around now is the possibility of the government distributing vouchers that citizens can use to purchase news. He did not see such a program getting passed in the Obama administration because the president already is facing opposition to what some opponents call his socialist policies.

Steinmetz agreed the current business model was headed toward a collapse and was not coming back. But, he said, the new model will have to also be a profit-model, because that is how journalism has been funded for the last 200 years.

Cummings disagreed the industry was on the verge of collapse. He cited strong circulation numbers for The News-Times and climbing online ad revenues.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, another Hearst newspaper, was converted to online-only about a year ago, and is very close to being profitable, Whamond said.

Through social networks, people are opting in to have The News-Times and other publications be a part of their lives, Whamond said.

Twenty percent of The Public Record's traffic is directed from Facebook, Leopold said.

Student panelist Josh Durkin, an intern and staff writer for The Public Record, said products such as the iPad may lead to such personalization of the news that is delivered to people that they could completely ignore important stories that they don't find interesting.

"You have to give people what they want, but you have to convince them why broadening their mind is in their interest," Baker said.